A Tart Take on Apple; a Media Blather Index and Seeing Upside in Banks: Best of Kass

In highlights from this week's trading diary and posts, Kass wears no rose-colored glasses to view Apple, counts all the bulls on TV then parses the retail and jobs data.

Doug Kass of Seabreeze Partners is known for his accurate stock market calls and keen insights into the economy, which he shares with RealMoney Pro readers in his daily trading diary.

This past week, Kass has a tart take on Apple, sees plenty of bulls on the television and then parses the data on retail and jobless claims.

My Tart Take on Apple

Originally published June 9 at 9:53 a.m. EDT

The nearly unanimous view is that the news from yesterday's Worldwide Developers Conference was a net positive for Apple (AAPL).

I respectfully disagree. To me, there was no "wow" announcement, nor were the announcements that were made significant enough to support further strength in the Apple ecosystem.

My view is that we're well through the last important upgrade cycle for the company's key phone product now, and that neither Apple Pay nor the Apple Watch will move the sales-and-profit needle enough to support AAPL's current price.

To me, Apple is "overowned" and investor sentiment toward the stock is high, as manifested in its elevated price-to-earnings multiple relative to other hardware companies.

I still view Apple as an electronics company. Although the bulls see it as a precursor to more of a computer-programming platform (and there's some truth that sentiment), that path won't be a smooth one. The business landscape is more competitive, and perhaps not as profitable as some project.